


I'll Wait Up

by Plaidisades



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: A little romantic if you squint, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, like really really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plaidisades/pseuds/Plaidisades
Summary: *This story has mentions of grief/grieving/losing parents* Nothing too graphic but the emotions are there.





	I'll Wait Up

**Author's Note:**

> *This story has mentions of grief/grieving/losing parents* Nothing too graphic but the emotions are there.

Nightwing came home to a dark and empty tower. No TV blaring the news or a new video game. No chatter, no quarreling. Only a single light on in the kitchen and the presence of mint in the air. Tea, he surmised. Raven’s tea.

He walked deeper into the tower’s living room and found Raven curled up on the couch, book in hand. She was reading by the soft pearly light of the moon.

“Welcome back,” she said casually. Her eyes were still scanning runic script on the withered pages that threatened to crumble to dust in her hands.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asked. He set his bag down on the couch and proceeded to the kitchen. 

“I got it,” he told the tendril of black energy moving towards the stove. He placed a mug down as the first bubble of the boiling brew burst. He turned off the stove and poured some tea into the mug, remembering Raven liked hers with a spoon of sugar. There was just enough for another mug, and so he poured himself one as well before joining her on the couch.

Nigthwing was always surprised at how simple this felt. He knew she could have gotten the tea herself, but there was something about fixing it for her, just the way she liked it. It was similar to how he knew that Starfire always went heavy handed on the spices when she cooked. Or that Cyborg never re-racked the weights in ascending order. Or that Changeling hated the effort to maintain his vegan diet but still stuck to it nonetheless.

The domesticity. The banality of it all against the constant dramatics of their lives. They weren’t just the people he fought crime with, but the people he lived with; his family. He took a sip of the tea but it sat heavy at the top of his stomach. That’s why the day was harder than it needed to be.

“Everyone wanted a day off as well, so they went...out,” Raven told him. Nightwing chuckled. 

“Did they say where?”. 

“Nope. Their ‘no questions asked’ day off,”

_ “I’m gone for the day. Call it my ‘No Questions Asked’ Day off,” _

_ Everyone tilted their heads up at their leader. He was wearing civilian clothes, still black and blue like his uniform but with considerably less spandex. He made his announcement while everyone else was shoveling breakfast into their mouths. _

_ The titans, no longers teens, had been through so much together. After living, working, and almost dying together, it felt odd to keep secrets from the few people he trusted. But everyone on the team kept some cards close to their chest. And this was his. _

_ No one said anything but he could see the confusion on their faces, and could hear the questions inching closer to the tips of their tongues. Before they let loose, he returned back to his room to grab his backpack and a dark denim jacket. He was about to re-enter the kitchen but instead listened to the hushed voices on the other side of the door. _

_ “That’s so weird though. I can’t remember the last time Nightwing took a day off. If there’s a faulty light in the tower he wants to know,” Changeling huffed. “I don’t understand why he can’t tell us.” _

_ “Everyone is entitled to their privacy. So is Nightwing,” said Raven. Her monotonous voice was hardened with an impatient edge. _

_ “But we’ve known each other for a long time,” Starfire added. She sounded confused, and Nightwing felt a little pang of guilt. _

_ “We’ve lived lives and experienced things before we came here. Sometimes we have to deal with them,” _

_ “Raven’s right, y’all. Let the man have his time,” Cyborg added. Changeling and Starfire mumbled their reluctant agreement._

_ Robin entered the room and waved his communicator at them. “Only in an absolute emergency, I’m just a phone call away. I’ll be back late, so don’t wait up."_

_ He sighed and relaxed his shoulders, hoping Raven would feel the relief he felt from her advocacy. She turned to him and said nothing but her eyes were warmer and there was just the faintest tilt of her mouth into a smile. _

_ He would have stood his ground. He would have kept doging their questions until they relented in frustration. But it was good to know that he had someone in his corner. _

“They probably went to the movies,” she concluded.

“You didn’t go with them?” Nightwing asked. Raven shrugged.

“I prefer some companies over others,” she gestured to her book. 

They drank their tea and eased into the silence. Nightwing liked that he and Raven could sit together. But he felt a shift in the typical comfort that they shared in silence. Sharing tea was nothing new, but he'd been gone all day, everyone else had been gone for a while. Why did she put on enough for two people? He spared her glance. She had gone back to her book, eyes running back and forth over the pages, with her tea hovering to the side of her. But she was still. Too still. It was the kind of tension that she had on missions and stake outs. Waiting for someone to attack or even the team’s own opportunity to strike. 

“Good book?” he asked. She hummed the affirmative. Nightwing looked ahead.

“Distracted?"

"No,"

"Must be hard to read then,” he continued.

“Why?”

“Because you haven’t turned a page since I sat down,” 

Now Raven stiffened even more. Not predator waiting to strike, but deer caught in the headlights. He waited for her to explain herself.

"Nightwing..." she began, but he beat her to the conclusion and cut her off. 

“You knew,” 

Rave sighed and closed her book. She put it on the coffee table and turned towards him.

“I try not to go where I’m not wanted when I enter someone’s mind. Somethings just want to be seen. The burden can’t always bear itself.”

_ They nearly seemed to disappear into the tip of the tent, each time going higher and higher. The crowd loudly marveled at their acrobatic feats, but he was too stunned to cheer. He had seen his parents preform a million times and it always felt like his first show. He disappeared into a bubble, protected from everything else in the world when he watched them. When he performed with them. Then that bubble was ruptured. And soon his parents went from larger than life to dead at his feet. _

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Nightwing slipped his hand under his glasses to rub the weariness from his eyes. The poundage of the day was settling in. The grief and all that came with it. A complex melange of anger, sadness and emptiness that he allowed himself to feel once a year. It was a lot. To carry that around all the time. It got easier, but it never truly went away. 

“It can be so hard, Rae. It can be really hard,” he confessed. Nightwing dropped his hand he took his glasses off. No one on the team had really caught a good look at his eyes. But now Raven could see that they were dry but glazed over. The brilliant blue was faded, like storm clouds dulling the brightness of a sunny day. She shifted closer and put one hand his shoulder. He expected some form of her magic to drift into him, even to soothe but none came. No magic, no tricks, no shortcuts. Just the comfort of a friend.

"Tell me," she encouraged him.

And so he did. He told her about letting go of Nightwing for a day and just being Dick. Alfred fussing over him like a mother hen. Bruce doing...Bruce things. His attempt of comforting Dick, (when Dick himself was sure that Bruce had never found a healthy outlet for his own grief) was awkward, but appreciated. And then making his own way, paying his respects. He brought roses, each for every year he lived without them. He felt his legs give out and he sat down in front of their graves. He rested his head, still filled with angry thoughts, on his knees. Why them? Why me? The teenaged irrational insisting that it just wasn’t _fair._ The hot tears burned just as much as they did when his parents died.

He didn’t go into every detail, and Raven didn’t pry. She sat down next to him, while he recounted the day’s events. When his voice got softer or wavered, Raven would squeeze his shoulder, telling him it was okay if he wanted to continue or stop, whatever was better for him. 

When he was done, Nightwing leaned back into the couch. He was even more exhausted, feeling the day and all the emotions with it again. But he also felt lighter. Raven gave him one last pinch before putting her hand back into her lap.

“Did you wait up for me?” he asked even though he knew the answer.

“Yes,”

“I told you guys you didn’t have to,”

“I know,”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written for others to read in years so...¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
